Shirin Ariff’s empowering and heartbreaking memoir tells the story of how she experienced and survive trauma and abuse. When she re-married her second husband and moved to Canada, she was kept as a slave in her own home and endured her husband’s abuse. She hopes to show hope with her writing to other victims, learn more about her journey below.

Hi Shirin, thank you for discussing your memoir, The Second Wife, with us. Please tell us about yourself, where you are from and what your book is about. What inspired you to write it?

Hello! I was born in Kolkata, India and live in Toronto, Canada. I am a proud mother of four beautiful children, an award winning author, an inspirational speaker and women’s empowerment coach. After braving immigration to Canada and surviving cancer, I committed to helping women find their inner strength and become their own guiding force. My book is a memoir with a bit of self-help activities to make it interactive for the readers. There are several reasons for writing this book. I wanted to be heard. I wanted to leave a legacy of no abuse for my children. I wanted to be the voice of all those silently suffering women who are going through what I went through. I wanted the men to know the impact on us women when they hurt us. 

As an Asian-Canadian, Samantha Wan is forging a path to inspire creatives within the entertainment industry and advocating for the importance of representation in television and movies. Her show, Second Jen, is a buddy comedy about two second-generation millennials who are trying to make it on their own in the big city. Find out more about her work below!

Hi Samantha, congratulations on your nomination for Best Comedy Series in 2019 Canadian Screen Awards for your sitcom, Second Jen! Tell us about your show and how you came about creating it.

Thank you! Second Jen is a sitcom about Second Generation kids and their crazy immigrant families. Two Asian Canadian girls moving away from home and experiencing all their adult-ing firsts together. It’s based around the lives and neighborhoods of my co-creator, Amanda Joy, and myself. We created the show because at the time we found there weren’t many developed roles for us as Asian actors. We created what we thought was a pilot (later we realized it was more 22 min short films) and then used it to pitch at the Banff World Media Festival. There we got the show optioned by Don Ferguson Productions and some interest from broadcasters. Skip over three years of stuff that is less exciting to hear about, numerous bible rewrites, pitches, and LOTS of waiting ( maybe a bit of crying, thinking the show was over, then it wasn’t, then it was…), Rogers Media picked us up for development and then series! We finished our second season last year and are super proud of the work. The nomination is the icing on the cake!

Medea Kalantar is the author of Honeycake: A Family of Spices, the first installment of her brand-new children’s book series which is currently available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Medea infuses valuable lessons on love and acceptance into her writing, celebrating diversity within families. Find out more below!

Thank you so much for answering our questions, Medea! Your children’s book, Honeycake: A Family of Spices, looks adorable! What is it about and what inspired you to create this book?

Firstly, I would like to say thank you for featuring me on Defective Geeks. I’m so honored and grateful to be given this platform to discuss the importance and the valuable lessons my books will give families around the world. I was inspired to write these books when I learnt that I was about to become a grandmother. My stories are all based on my own family, whose members come from diverse ethnic backgrounds. This unique mix is a perfect recipe, and it’s the reason why I call my grandchildren my little Honeycakes.

Jadiel Dowlin plays Phoenix Brooks in Nickelodeon’s Star Falls, a deep and thoughtful character who has had to live with the stardom of his Hollywood star father Craig Daniels (played by Dion Johnstone). At a young age and with the support of his family, Dowlin began pursuing that creative itch in entertainment through modeling and commercials. In 2013, he was cast in Amazon Prime’s original series, Annedroids, and is now a fast rising actor and writer as well. Get to know this inspiring young man through my chat with him below!

Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions, Jadiel! What inspired you to become an actor and how did you get started? Were you always a creative person?

Glad to be taking part in this interview!

I enjoyed “pretending” at a very young age. I wasn’t allowed to watch TV Monday through Friday, so it became a daily habit to read, write and play make-believe with my parents, especially my dad. We would play superheroes for hours. Then in grade five, I started writing speeches and winning speech competitions in every grade, at the school and regional level, to the point that I went to the finals in grade seven. It was then that my mom’s best friend from Panama, my Tia Lourdes (auntie in Spanish), told her that she has to put me into some kind of drama related activity because she noticed that I was a natural at acting and doing impersonations. My parents disagreed with her because they were focused on “building my character” they were afraid I would become like other child stars that we see in the media.

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Elena V. Wolfe stars in Star Falls on Nickelodeon as Beth Miller, a single mom and a veterinarian in a small town who falls in love with a Hollywood superstar. When Elena isn’t busy working on set, she is also writing a mythology based novels and you can also see her on SyFy’s Defiance and FX’s The Bridge. Get to know her more in our interview below!

Hello, Elena! Please tell us about your upcoming show on Nickelodeon, Star Falls, and your character, Beth Miller.

Hello! Alright, so the show centers around a teenage girl, Sophia, and her mother Beth who live in a quiet town of Star Falls. Things pick up quite a bit when a Hollywood superstar moves in to town with his three kids, who, with Sophia’s encouragement, begin a “Parent Trap” scheme to make their parents fall in love. I play Sophia’s mom Beth. She is shy an introverted, and understanding… to a point. The great thing about Beth and her relationship with her daughter is that her secretly quirky self comes out with Sophia by her side, and that becomes more prominent as the season progresses.

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Jasmine Daya wrote about her own personal experience as a woman pursuing a career while she was pregnant. In today’s society, sometimes motherhood is seen as a “road block” to women who want to work. Under her pen name, Leia London, Daya shares her own adventures and challenges in a realistic but lighthearted story.

Learn more about this powerhouse of a woman and what she has to say to other women who are juggling their own life and dreams.

Thank you for talking with Defective Geeks about your book, Jasmine. Can you give our readers a summary of ‘Law Girl’s Bump in the Road’?

Law Girl’s Bump in the Road is a chicklit novel based on my life but slightly fictionalized for entertainment value. I learned that I was pregnant in my last semester of law school and the baby was due at the same time that I was supposed to start working at a law firm. After years of school, a baby at that point in my life was not part of the plan. In addition, I was dealing with cultural issues and ridiculous pregnancy advice. My background is Indian. Although I was extremely concerned, the pregnancy itself resulted in an entertaining adventure that is chronicled in the book.

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Jessica Rose is a creative powerhouse and you may recognize her from television shows such as Man Seeking Woman and Saving Hope. She has also written and starred in her own short film called Alison which explores the intimacy between a couple during one particular strange night. Read more below to find out what acting means to her and her upcoming projects.

Your short film, ‘Alison,’ is so simple yet conveys so much about a relationship in one single night. I love how the short started out a bit silly then the emotional roller coaster escalates. What was the inspiration for it and what did you hope to show people?

Thank you! I think relationships are a subject that have always fascinated me. There is a specific kind of intimacy you develop in long term relationships that I hadn’t seen on screen before, and a particular kind of work involved that isn’t often talked about. There is a vulnerability, sometimes a very dark side, that we share with our partners that no one else sees. I know many couples who appear to always be fighting or dealing with some sort of drama, but they remain extremely determined and committed to staying together. Love is complicated, and our need for intimacy and partnership is powerful. I’m fascinated by the equation behind it: what and how much we are willing to endure in order to keep a relationship going, and whether the rewards of companionship outweigh the challenges.

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Risa Stone explores the fears and doubts most have when it comes to meeting strangers through dating apps with her short film, Man Eater. What would you do when your dream man or woman becomes your worst nightmare? Man Eater will premiere on October 15th 2017 at the 2017 ReelWorld Film Festival as part of the ACTRA Shorts Program. Find out more from Risa below!

Thanks for doing this interview with us, Risa! Can you tell us about yourself and how you got started acting?

Thank you for interviewing me! Some people, mainly my parents, would say that I started acting as soon as I was old enough to engage, so let’s call it age three. As a child, I was always putting on some kind of home-show but I would have to say that my acting career got “serious” over the last six years when I started actively working in commercials, film and TV.

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